Monday, 19 September 2011

Brian Rosner on Paul and the Law

The Annual Moore College Lectures for 2011 were delivered by Brian Rosner on ‘Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God’.

Audio files of the lectures, along with pdfs of notes to go with them, are available here.

Here is the blurb for the series:

‘The problem with understanding Paul and the law is that Paul’s letters present both negative critique and positive approval of the law. These lectures propose a hermeneutical solution to this puzzle. Rather than asking ‘which bits’ of the law Paul endorses, it is more accurate to consider Paul’s negative response to ‘the law as commandments,’ as well as his positive response to ‘the law as prophecy’ and ‘the law as wisdom’. This construal finds support not only in what Paul says about the law, but also in what he doesn’t say and in what he does with the law. And it highlights the value of the law for preaching the gospel and for Christian ethics.’

And here are the titles of the individual lectures:

Public Lecture (overview)

• Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God

Five Lecture Series

• ‘Circumcision is nothing’: The Puzzle of Paul and the Law

• ‘Not under the law’: Paul’s Repudiation of the Law as Legal Code

• ‘Under the law of Christ’: Paul’s Replacement of the Law

• ‘Witness to the gospel’: Paul’s Re-appropriation of the Law as Prophecy

• ‘Written for our instruction’: Paul’s Re-appropriation of the Law as Wisdom